Recovery from Auto Accident

Trapped in her truck’s cab after a rollover, Jane Kerr was sure she was going to die.

Jane Kerr was driving on a back road to her home when she hit a wet patch of gravel that sent her truck over a six-foot high embankment. Trapped in the truck’s cab, Jane was sure she was going to die. Luckily, she escaped by crawling through an open window. Jane found herself five miles from the nearest house, and needed to steal a truck in order to find help. Once she found the truck’s owners and returned home, Jane thought that the ordeal was over.

However, her recovery had only just begun. Jane visited her family physician, Dr. Mariette Vanwyk and received a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. She also received a referral to a chiropractor and massage therapist. Jane says she appreciated Dr. Vanwyk’s inclusive attitude towards health care. "She’s very open-minded and willing to look at other health care alternatives . . . We started with a chiropractor but what she and I discussed was that it would be better to work with the two together, one for the bones and one for the muscles." Jane also sought out other alternatives including acupuncture and Reiki massage in order to help control her pain. Therapy on her joints and muscles helped Jane overcome the physical trauma of her accident. However, the emotional trauma of her shocking rollover still lingered.

After months of feeling better, Jane suffered a relapse that affected her physically and emotionally. She says, "what happened when I had the relapse was a realization that I may never get back to what I was prior to the accident. It was like an emotional bottom fell out." As she tried to get her life back together, Jane again looked for holistic therapy, contacting naturopath Dr. Douglas Amell. He knew that Jane’s trauma hurt in both her mind and body. "There was a lot more than just physical trauma associated with the accident. It reached to a deep emotional level." Dr. Amell speculated that Jane’s body was somehow stuck at the moment of her accident. To loosen up both her mind and body, he suggested a program of acupuncture and guided imagery, which uses the imagination to put the body in a state of relaxation. These two therapies helped Jane to release the negative energy that had kept her reliving her accident over and over. This emotional treatment balanced the physical treatment Jane was receiving. She says, "if I didn’t heal the emotion I was not going to have success with the physical [healing]."